


Playing For Time

by numb3r5ev3n



Category: Homestuck, Miami Vice (2006)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 09:45:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numb3r5ev3n/pseuds/numb3r5ev3n
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brutal drug lord’s secrets fall into the hands of the unlikeliest of couriers. Sonny and Rico are tapped to find the girl before things spiral out of control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing For Time

Virginia crept quietly up the basement stairs.

  
Being a server tech simply meant waiting around for stuff to break. Hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of total chaos. So, she decided that it would be fun to go sneak upstairs and strife her Uncle Dan.  
  
By now he'd be parked in front of the TV with a beer, while her Aunt Melinda bustled in the kitchen. Odds were he wouldn't see her coming. Perfect. She lifted the basement door, which was a hatch cleverly concealed under a thick woven rug in case the cops ever came calling. The coast was clear.  
  
Things started to go wrong for Virginia the moment her Uncle rose up from his chair, slapping the toy foam katana out of her hands with enough force that they smarted.  
  
“Goddammit child, what's wrong with you?” he shouted. “I gave you a job to do.”  
  
She meant to say, “Nothing's down right now.” but what came out sounded more like a hollow croaking sound. Time seemed to speed up as her Uncle loomed over her. Everything was suddenly moving too fast, and her voice couldn’t keep up.   
  
“Go on. You got boxes to tend to. What the hell were you thinking about?”  
  
“Nothing’s down,” it finally came out in a tiny whimper, as she rubbed her stinging fingers. She felt the familiar nauseating jerk in her stomach as time skipped back to normal.  
  
“Then go draw, for crissakes. You got food and a bathroom down there. You got your fucking art and your laptop and your ponies, and your goddamn chessboard to keep your busy. What the fuck are you doing?  
  
“Okay,” she said, resignedly turning back towards the basement entrance.The foam sword lay on the carpet, well out of her reach - for all the good it would have done her, anyway. She heard the click of the lock above as she trudged back down the stairs, where the servers in their metal racks awaited her.  
  
Uncle Dan had shown her how to tend the machines; long, flat metal sandwiches with internal fans like jet engines. They didn't resemble any computer she'd ever seen before then. Someone had to check them periodically, to make sure they were up and running while he carried out business above.  
  
The machines always had to be running.  
  
Over time, she learned exactly what it was that the machines needed. What to do when one crashed, or didn't post, or gave an error, or when fans burnt out. Parts came in regularly from Ebay or Newegg, and she had to install them. Uncle Dan would help her rack a machine when one had to be taken completely out of its rails, because they were still way too heavy for her to lift. But that was it.  
  
He'd gotten her the laptop and her wireless headset, and he sometimes dropped money into her Paypal account when things ran smoothly for a long time with no outages. That and her room  and board, was all she had seen of payment for her services thus far. Uncle Dan said it was an apprenticeship. She was his Padawan. She was becoming 'leet,' or 'l337' as it was more properly spelled. Virginia knew enough by this time that people had stopped calling it 'l337' before she was born, but she just nodded and kept to her work.  
  
The machines always had to be running. She had a job to do.  
  
Virginia quit going to school right after her parents' funeral. People said it was because she was traumatized, but she knew that it was really because of the Weird Time Shit.  
  
She'd known it for what it was because of the webcomic _Homestuck_ (just about her favorite thing in the world) had given her a name for it, and she used the story's terminology almost exclusively now to describe what she felt. Time sped up for everyone else until it seemed like entire universes were being born and expiring all within the span of a single breath; time slowed down for her, and only for her, until she could feel her blood oozing in her veins at the speed of chilled molasses, her heart seemed to beat once per hour, her voice distorted and warped in her throat, and all her limbs felt like they were made of petrified wood.  
  
The clocks always read one minute right after the next, but for Virginia, the clocks always lied. What she was experiencing was a sensation of time out of time. Her stomach never stopped giving her trouble.   
  
She knew, of course, that Homestuck was just a webcomic; that Weird Time Shit wasn’t really real, and that her brain just did weird things since the night she’d woken up in the hospital. Telling herself she was a Time Player was just a way to deal with it all.  
  
The fact that there could be more than one kind of time was a concept that she’d quickly learned to accept. There was uptime and downtime; and the vast majority of it was uptime if she was doing her job the right way. Her life was an endlessly repeating chain of activities that she cycled through, day after day after day. It helped her to keep track of things. It was vitally important to keep time in order. She had a job to do.  
  
(A young woman stands in a darkened basement, amidst the roar of fans and the glow of an LCD screen.)  
  
Uncle Dan had taught her a lot, but there was a lot she was learning on her own.  
  
The small network they had running in the basement was like a sink trap for other people's secrets. All of it was encrypted and cataloged by subject on a special server, though Dan kept choice bits of it backed up to a series of USB thumbdrives. These were kept in a case that he referred to as his 'Bugout Bag' – presumably because it was all information he planned on getting out with in case his operation were ever discovered, and he had to Bug Out. Some of it had found its way to wikileaks, in a roundabout fashion – but most of it ended up in the Bugout Bag, where it stayed.  
  
Uncle Dan had told her exactly what to do in case there was trouble. A button was wired to a red light from the kitchen above. She what to do if that red light ever went on.  
  
And until she looked up and saw it, she'd never been given any reason to expect that it ever would.  
  
Time screeched to a halt, and sped up as she felt her heart pounding in her throat.  
  
They were here.  
  
There was always a danger that they'd be found out by the cops. Virginia knew this. It was her job, her duty, to get out of there with the Bugout Bag and wait for his signal.  
  
(BRB, FBI.)  
  
She scrambled, initiating the sequence of events that would wipe the machines clean of their pilfered data, before grabbing the Bugout Bag and putting it in the actual bugout bag he'd put together for her, along with her laptop.  
  
(so she could bug out while she bugged out.)  
  
She was up and out of the basement window when the blows started to rain down on the basement door above.  
  
The weird thing was, there were no cop cars. She'd planned on having to slip out past them somehow; but no, there was just the one van with tinted windows.  
  
 _(Oh shit, we're actually being Partyvanned. This is apparently a thing that really does happen.)_  
  
That probably meant it was the FBI, or Vice Cops – Uncle Dan had told her that Vice Cops looked exactly like normal people, that they could be anyone. She streaked away in the opposite direction, towards the woods nearby.  
  
It was getting dark; probably the only reason they'd overlooked the basement window. Virginia felt time slow to its normal pace, thanking the Sufferer Himself that she hadn't been seen or followed.  
  
She checked out the contents of her Uncle's bugout bag – the actual bag, not the case containing the thumbdrives. She found cash, a few Power Bars, a bottle of water, one Ace bandage, some alcohol wipes, one roll of electrical tape, one roll of black duct tape, a multitool, a plastic container of antacid tablets, a disposable cellphone, and a can of Faygo Redpop.  
  
It was quite a lot of cash, actually. She counted up five hundred dollars in different denominations over the next few minutes, then counted it again in shock. She'd never seen so much in one place.  
  
She was thankful she’s made it out in her God Tier of Time hoodie, as it was starting to get chilly out. She was still wearing her bluetooth headset. Her sunglasses (a cheap knockoff of Ben Stiller's famed aviator shades) were in her hoodie pocket.    
  
Also, she was glad she had the cellphone. Uncle Dan would get one phone call. That was what happened in all the movies about cops that she'd ever seen. She figured even Vice Cops had to abide by that.  
  
She munched on some of the antacid tablets as she settled down to wait.  
  


…

  
“What do you mean it's not there?” the voice hissed. Dan Keane saw the swastika-tattooed Aryan Brotherhood thug wince, heard him mutter ineffectually into his cellphone. The other Aryan Brotherhood thug who'd managed to brute-force the basement hatch had come up with nothing.  
  
Meaning that Virginia had indeed bugged out.  
  
He knew that he should probably have envisioned that this would be the end result when he'd attempted to blackmail Archangel de Jesus Montoya with the information on those drives.   
  
“Where is it?” AB #1 demanded, aiming his gun at Melinda.  
  
Dan reacted by swinging his legs out, kicking the legs of AB #1 out from under him, praying that Melinda would make a run for it. AB #2, fresh from his trip up the basement stairs, reacted to that by shooting Melinda.  
  
Dan roared. He was on his feet in an instant, snatching his replica katana from where it was mounted on the wall above him and bringing it down in an arc towards the intricately inked neck of AB #1. AB #2 plugged him in the chest.  
  
“What happened? What’s going on?” the voice on the other end of the phone demanded. The two men looked at each other as it dawned upon them both that they had just killed the only two people who knew where the information was that they’d been sent to retrieve.   
  
Then #1 saw it; a child’s toy sword, lying on the carpet near the television.   
  
“Basement window was open,” Skinhead #2 mouthed the words.  
  


…

  
Virginia heard neither shot, on account of the silencers.  
  
She contemplated slamming the can of warm Redpop as she waited for her Uncle's phone call. She wished he'd remembered to pack something caffeinated.  
  
She pulled out the phone. Upon further inspection, there was exactly one number programmed into the contacts list. Someone named Javier.  
  
She wondered who the Hell Javier was, and if calling this person would mean missing an incoming call from her Uncle. And yet - the phone beckoned. She saw that it had bluetooth capabilities. She wasted no time syncing it to her headset, and hit the button to call Javier.  
  
Three rings, then a male voice answered with a Spanish accent.  
  
“Owlman?”  
  
“Owlman's been jacked. This is Vir...Strider,” Virginia answered, fumbling over her accidental slip of the tongue.  
  
“Listen Virstrider, I want you to stop playing around and put Owlman on,” the voice demanded.  
  
“I said he's been jacked. We just got motherfucking raided. I got out with the stuff. What the Hell am I supposed to do now?”  
  
“Holy shit! Stay right where you are. If Owlman contacts you, do not give him your location. Wait there for further instructions. Can you do that?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I'll call you back in fifteen minutes.”  
  
There was a click, and the line went dead.  
  
Virginia sighed, and shoved the phone into the pocket of her jeans. She was once again contemplating the can of soda when she heard it; a sound like two large, armed men attempting to move quietly through tall brush.  
  
Virginia crouched down, making herself as small as possible - which wasn’t at all difficult. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness; the eyes of her pursuers obviously hadn’t.  
  
They didn’t look like cops. Not even in this light.   
  
She made out the crooked line of a swastika and eagle on the neck of one of the men as he moved through a patch of moonlight, nearly tripping over a tree root. Time betrayed her again, and their blundering passage by her hiding place seemed to take hours.  
  
Nazis.   
  
What could her Uncle possibly have that Nazis would want? Was this about drugs? Had a deal gone bad? She never saw where her Uncle and Aunt got their stuff. It just seemed to appear as if by magic. About the only time she was allowed upstairs for longer than it took to help Aunt Melinda cook their meals or clean up was when her Aunt and Uncle shot up, because someone had to be around to push them into the recovery position if they passed out or ODed.  
  
And why were they looking for her? Why would lame white supremacist types care anything about data? In her experience, people like that tended to avoid information.  
  
She crouched patiently in the underbrush while they blundered by. She waited until they were out of sight and earshot, and then darted back towards the house.  
  
The front door had been kicked open, and hung slightly off its hinges. There was no police tape. The light was on, and she could hear the TV.   
  
She hovered on the doorstep, more than a little afraid of what she would find. Finally, her feet seemed to move of their own accord.  
  
She was over the threshold.   
  
She was in the living room.   
  
She was staring at her Aunt and Uncle’s bloodied corpses.  
  
Virginia was dimly aware of tears pouring down her cheeks. She had done what she’d been told to do - but she had run away and hidden herself, and now they were dead. Just like Mom and Dad.  
  
And the logic of the webcomic told her that she needed to kiss the corpses.   
  
_(This is stupid)_ she told that part of her mind. _(It’s just a story. People don’t resurrect in real life when you kiss the corpse. This is not a Session. They don’t have Dream Selves to resurrect from.)_  
  
And yet, the other part of her brain was berating the sensible part; because really. she was being unforgivably ungrateful and selfish for not even trying it. They’d given her internet access and food, and a roof over her head. They were dead because she’d run away, and she wouldn’t even kiss the corpses.  
  
Virginia stepped around her Aunt’s body, over to where her Uncle lay with the Katana in his chest, Excalibur-style. If she was going to do this, she figured she should at least pull the Katana out.   
  
Sobbing, she gripped the hilt and pulled. The shitty stainless steel blade snapped off in the middle, leaving her holding the handle and about six inches of steel.  
  
She nearly screamed when the cellphone went off. It came out in a strangled yelp as she  fumbled for the phone button on her headset.  
  
“This is what I need to you do. There is a bus stop at a 7-11 nearby you. I need you to get on when the next bus comes. You got any cash?”  
  
She gasped hoarsely, unable to make the words come.   
  
“Virstrider? Are you there?”  
  
“They killed my Uncle.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’m back in the house. Owlman is dead. They killed him.”  
  
“Get the hell out of there! Get to the bus stop before they catch you! Call this number when you get on the bus.” The phone clicked.  
  
The blade went into the bugout bag. She stopped long enough to wrap it up in her hoodie and shove it inside before she got to the gas station. The Nazis hadn’t seen her. No one had seen her outside the house in over two years.   
  
She wished she had a Strife Deck, and that Captchalouging was actually a real thing, because the broken sword was going to be hella hard to explain away if she was searched. It would also make carrying the bugout bag a lot easier.   
  
The clerk was an older black man. Virginia bought a sandwich, some antacid tablets, and a bus ticket, and went into the restroom. The bus wasn’t due for four hours.   
  
She was just coming back out again when she saw the Nazis at the front counter.  
  
“You see a kid come in here?” one of them asked.   
  
“A girl,” the other one said.   
  
Virginia shrank down behind the door and backed against it, closing it as quietly as she could and feeling in the bag for the sword’s handle. An indescribable amount of time passed before she heard the clerk’s voice on the other side of the door.  
  
“It’s okay, honey. They’re gone.”  
  
She swallowed, shoved the sword back into the bag, and opened the door.   
  
She and the clerk were alone in the store.  
  
“You want me to call the cops?” the clerk asked.  
  
It seemed an eternity before she heard her own voice emerging from her vocal chords, but it eventually got there;  
  
“No. I got to get on a bus in four hours,” Virginia said.  
  
“You sure? You got a safe place to go to?”  
  
“Safer than here.”  
  
“Tell you what. You go back in there, and I’ll hang the out-of-order sign on it for the next four hours. That sound good?”  
  
“You got yourself a deal.”

…

  
One of the nearby restaurants had a wireless hotspot; it seemed like those were popping up everywhere now, even out here on the outskirts of Mobile, Alabama. The signal was weak, but it was unprotected, and she was able to jump on it and have a looksee.  
  
There were no reports about her Aunt and Uncle. Virginia supposed that they wouldn’t be found until morning. She checked the local news for anything that seemed relevant, then cast her net wider. She googled the handle Owlman, but did not get any promising clues. She went to places she typically would never even think of going, places like Free Republic and Stormfront, skimming the forums for possible answers. When that turned up nothing, she went to 4chan out of desperation.  
  
“Hey /b/,” she posted,  
  
“Nazis just broke into my house and killed my whole family. What do?”  
  
The answers rolled in for several minutes before the thread was saged, lost amidst the generally transient, chaotic madness that was /b/.  
  
“Did you call the cops?”  
  
“Fuck the cops. CALL THE BEAR JEW.”  
  
“Congratulations! You are now Batman. ”  
  
“1. Become Magneto. 2. Kill Kevin Bacon with a quarter. 3. ??? 4. Profit!  
  
“Did you get their scalps?”  
  
“THE NAZIS COME IN. THE NAZIS GO OUT. YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN THAT.”  
  
“Climb up to the highest point in your house, jump off onto something sharp, and kill yourself.”  
  
“Pics or it didn’t happen.”  
  
“Hey, these aren’t showers -”  
  
“AH WANT MAH SCALPS.”  
  
Virginia told herself that she should have expected this kind of response from /b/, but she was hitting a dead end and was running out of places to look. Shaking what was (usually for her) the tree of all knowledge was proving fruitless at this juncture. The internet had never failed her before. She was a tense, trembling mess when the clerk finally knocked on the bathroom door.  
  
The bus driver didn’t even look at her when she stamped her ticket.   
  
She took the phone out of her pocket and called Javier.  
  
“Virstrider?”  
  
“It’s just Strider,” Virginia said. “I’m on the bus. How long do I stay on it?”  
  
“Good girl, Strider. You get off in Miami.” Javier said. “I’ll text you the address where you have to go. Take a bus or get a cab. Stay where there’s people. Don’t go anywhere off by yourself where someone can grab you. If someone tries, scream like a Banshee. And avoid the cops.”   
  
“You don’t have to tell me,” Virginia said quietly.  
  
“Good. What do you have? I mean, how did he store it?”  
  
“Looks like about six thumb drives. Not sure how big. It doesn’t say on them, and I haven’t looked.”  
  
“Good. Don’t look at those drives. The info on there doesn’t concern you. You do everything I tell you, and I can swear to you that you’ll make it out of this, and we’ll take down the people who got your Aunt and Uncle.”  
  
“How the Hell did they get tangled up with fucking Nazis, anyway?” Virginia whispered, after a quick glance around the bus. Nobody seemed to be listening, or looked as if they cared.  
  
“You saw them?”  
  
“Yeah. Two guys with Nazi tattoos. They went past me in the woods, and they came into the gas station. I hid in the bathroom. They didn’t see me.”  
  
“Good job. You’re doing such an awesome job keeping your shit together through all this, you don’t even know. Don’t tell anyone else. Don’t talk to anyone else at all if you can help it. I’ll be in touch. See you in Miami.”  
  
“Sure thing,” Virginia said, and the line went dead once again.   
  
She wondered if, in the context of Homestuck, Javier counted as her Exile or her Patron Troll at this point.  
  
Virginia took another cautionary look around the bus, and then sank back as far into her seat as she could. She wedged the bag behind and beneath her against the wall of the bus, so it would be difficult to get it away from her without waking her up if she fell asleep.The itinerary said the journey would take nineteen hours. Greyhound had recently equipped several of their buses with wifi capabilities; this one, unfortunately, was not one of them. Those buses didn’t go through Mobile.  
  
Maybe it would be a good thing to disappear off of the grid for a while. Still, Virginia had scarcely gone nineteen minutes without internet access over the past two years. Nineteen hours was going to be sheer torture, especially since it meant her hunt for information was now at a standstill.  
  
Her only remaining kin were dead, and she still didn’t even have the slightest idea why. It was worse than that time in the hospital two years ago, when no one would tell her if her mom and dad were okay.  
  
She swallowed around the large lump in her throat, and told herself she wouldn’t cry. She had to keep it together.

She had a job to do.


End file.
